There is value in a broker if they do their job correctly. Over my career I've worked

with brokers who have been very capable, adept, hard-working and strived to maximize the value for their customers – but this is rare.

All of us at some point in our lives have played the telephone game, right? The game when you get in a circle and you whisper something into the ear of the person on your right. Then they pass that message around the circle until it gets back to you. We all know how dramatically different that one sentence can be once it gets back to you.

This is precisely the problem in dealing with brokers. My customer may have an issue with any number of variables, that I, as a shipper, as a farmer, or we as a family, can change and improve. The goal for me is making sure that my customer gets whatever it is that they need, when they need it, however they need it. A critical component to making sure that happens is communication. By the time that telephone game is played between the customer, broker and a dozen shippers, we, the growers, don’t know what you really want. Unfortunately, we’ll continue sending you loads that still contain the problems you complained about in the first place, because the communication breakdown leaves us unaware of the real problem.

By the time you receive your third or fourth incorrect load, the broker becomes defensive, because it’s come to the third or fourth time that they have messed up on the line of communication. To save themselves, often it’s the grower, the farmer that gets thrown under the bus. It’s unfortunate, because the broker didn’t mean to lose the business or frustrate you, the customer, or me, the shipper. But the telephone game just never works.

Aside from communication, another disadvantage of working with a broker is the effects on your pricing. Often brokers will argue that they can “shop the market.” If they are not a loyal buyer from a grower, often they will not get the best price. They may play games and buy a second label or an inferior product to try and match your price point. While that may seem to work in the short term, in the long term it is going to cost money and create problems.

It all comes down to who has more skin in the game. As a grower/shipper, we have everything to gain and everything to lose by servicing our customers. We need to be valuable to our customers. We need our customer to see we have their best interest in mind because their best interest is also our best interest. We know as growers that out of the 1,200 acres of onions we plant, that 200 acres have homes with great customers that are fair, reliable, and consistent in the way they purchase. Our customers know that they have a farmer that’s planted for them and has a reliable Plan B (back up acres from which to pull crops).

When the market gets very tight and you buy exclusively through brokers – who is going to have the supply? Will it be the broker, who occasionally buys from multiple shippers? Or is it going to be the customer that has the relationship with the shipper? You see that’s where the money is really made. The money isn’t made in a $7 - $10 average onion market. No, it’s made in the high market. In a low/average market, you can get all the onions you want and compete with everyone else in the market who also has onions. If the market doubles or triples in price, which one of you is going to be able to have the product? Bingo. The person who gets the product is the person that has a true relationship. You, the customer, will have the product and your competitors who buy through brokers will not. You’ll be the one with the advantage and the one that makes the money in the high market.

If you’re large enough as an organization to afford buying straight loads or half loads, it would not be to your advantage to buy through a broker. Avoid them. If you feel like you have a valuable broker, continue to work with them, but demand that you have a direct line of communication with yourself and the grower/shipper. If that broker is providing you the service that they should, they should not feel threatened by the idea that you speak directly with the grower/shipper. A direct line of communication is something that should be demanded, expected, and provided. I don’t want a broker to promise you that we’ll get your order in early only to not tell me how urgent it is for you because they forgot or don’t care. They don’t care for you, the customer, like we do.

I do not mean to disparage my broker friends or the few great brokers I’ve worked with. I see their value when they aren’t afraid to have me communicate with the customer, to have me involved in the conversation. They know of our integrity and our capability in fulfilling what it is the customer needs. If we have to stay late, we’ll stay late. If we need to come early, we’ll come early. We know you need your product. We need you, our family needs you, to buy from us. Communicate with us. Give us an opportunity to sell directly to you and we can change the industry. We can change the game, the efficiency, and the possibilities.

Owyhee Produce is lucky to have such an amazing extended “family” that surrounds our three-generation operated farm – from the wholesalers that distribute our produce to consumers that share their favorite recipes. In recent years, social media has allowed us to share live videos of our harvest, photos of our hard-working crew, and get to know our YOU – our followers!

Over the past few months we’ve gotten to know a gentleman by the name of Chris Holmes, a fellow farmer at Mata Farms in Mississippi, via our Facebook page. A few years ago, Chris was in need of a load of whites and reached out to Shay and Robin:

Chris said, “I saw you guys rise from a very small operation to building your own packing shed and I knew the story. I’d seen some of your social media and knew the members of the Froerer family were very strong believers.”

That conversation made an impression on Chris and when he saw the Treasure Valley begin to experience the effects of Snowmaggedon 2017, Chris felt led to reach out to us again.

“I could see what was actually happening through Shay’s videos and updates. I could see it was crushing the company, having known them. It was just totally unbelievable. It compelled me to enlist members of my church to pray without ceasing to turn the tragic situation around," he said.

More than just prayers, Chris made it a point to respond to each and every post we published with words of encouragement and humor to help us get through the winter. Maybe you’ve seen his creative memes in the comments? Our team began to look forward to seeing what Chris would come up with and it offered us some humor in a difficult time.

Social media has changed our industry in so many ways. At Owyhee Produce, we’re grateful for the opportunity it has given us to meet people like Chris and forge meaningful, supportive relationships in our industry. Thank you Chris – for everything!

For those of you on the buying desk, I imagine at least a few have you have wondered the reason behind the large amounts of Colossal and larger onions this year. There are, as you might expect, a few reasons for this.

I should explain what we do to create our desired size profile in the field. It's pretty simple; we plant onions closer together or farther apart depending on the size of onions we want to grow. The closer together the onions, the smaller. The farther apart, the larger. You can think of it like a litter of puppies all fighting to get something to eat, if there are more dogs than there is food, you end up with overall smaller pups and and a runt here and there. If the litter is small, you end up with a few really fat puppies. Onions are no different. They are competing for the nutrients from the soil, just like the puppies do for milk.

This crop wasn't planted farther apart though, it was Mother Nature who came in and created all that space. Wet, windy, and cold weather early in the onion's lives killed about 10% more than what most of us planned for. These dead onions made more space. Normally more space would mean larger onions, but mother nature followed up the wet, windy, and cold weather with almost perfect growing conditions for the remainder of the season. So not only did our onions have more nutrients available to them in the soil, but they also had warm days and especially warm nights that kept them growing. The end result, yields that were 10-15 higher than normal with stand counts that were about that much lower than normal. Mother Nature is Awesome!

Owyhee Produce is proud to officially introduce its Sweet Onions to the open market. It’s taken three years to perfect the process, and now they are proud to offer two different varieties.

To call an onion a “sweet,” it has to meet the right levels of sugar content and pungency. A regular yellow onion on the pyruvic scale of acidity or pungency sits around a 7 or 8. To be called a sweet it has to hit under a 4, with a super sweet being under a 2. Owhyee’s sweets sit between a 3 and 4.

The United States imports the majority of their sweet onions from Chile and Peru; a trip that spans 7-8,000 miles. Owyhee’s sweets are grown in US soil, by a third-generation family farm that employs dirt to dock safety regulations, and is involved in every step of the growing, packing, and shipping process. Owyhee’s sweets cost less and come with a much smaller carbon footprint.

Owyhee Produce’s Sweet Onions are available now until February and come in 40 lb. cartons or a range of 2-10lb consumer packs. Their sweet, mild flavor is best in raw form and will be a great addition to your holiday meals!

Early Onion varieties tend to have less skin, a larger neck, and larger roots versus the long-day onions. It's important to cure the onions and we do everything at our shed from when we first put them in bins to when we are packing to let the onions dry and put on more skin.

Inevitably though, they do lose skin on the packing line. However, early onions can quickly replace their lost skin with a short 12-24 hours of air flow. Air flow is crucial in replacing lost skin, allowing onions to arrive in better condition and to typically have a longer shelf-life.

Here's where flatbed transportation comes in. Flatbeds provide optimal air flow to the onions during transportation. Refrigerated vans are the second best option, while vented vans with our current heat conditions are the worst option.

When shipping early onions and wanting to receive the best quality, longest-lasting onion, it's wise to employ flatbeds for all of your transportation needs!

25-30 million Christmas trees are sold in the United States every year! A product that costs very little to grow, makes for a great profit during the holiday season. Oregon is listed as one of the top Christmas Tree producing states in the nation. What you may not know is that these farm-grown festivities bring competition for freight.

With the weather cooling down, we can't ship our onions on flat bed trucks during the winter months, which limits our options for transportation. From a week before Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, Christmas tree shippers are feverishly shipping trees from coast to coast. With such a large profit return, tree shippers are willing to pay more for freight costs, simply because they can afford to. They have a month-long time crunch to make profit.

This leaves shippers like us having a harder time not only finding trucks but also paying the freight costs. Typically we see a 15-20% increase in delivery rates, especially to the east coast.

During this season, freight has been great up to this point. While the holiday prices are better than they were last year, the rush of Christmas trees has still affected our loads.

With close to 20,000 attendees, the 2015 Produce Marketing Association’s (PMA) Fresh Summit Trade Show held in Georgia broke records as one of the biggest expos to date in the produce industry. The true importance of PMA comes from this variety of participants, ranging from leading industry growers and shippers, marketing experts, and retail buyers – including those internationally. At Owyhee Produce, we have placed a priority on attending the various shows PMA has to offer and this year we expanded the group we brought with us. Read below to hear all about it!

“This PMA show was unlike any of the other eight I’ve attended – not only was it much more upbeat and active but instead of perusing booths alone, I had along members of my team who had never been to a show before. It shifted my perspective of the show, reminding me of how immense and overwhelming the magnitude of PMA can be. Not only is the produce industry incredible in size, but it’s built by a lot of hard-working people who get their unique products to stand out to businesses. I can’t wait for the PMA Food Service Show in Monterey, CA in July of 2016 where Owyhee Produce will be an exhibitor for the first time!”

- Shay (General Manager of Owyhee Produce)

“It was great to be at PMA with everyone in our group – to see everything through their eyes and perspectives. I think we walked around 11 miles the first day visiting just a portion of all of the booths. It was great to see old friends and to meet new ones I’d only spoken to over the phone. I truly believe that PMA is a necessity for anyone in the industry – it’s where you absolutely need to be!”

- Robin (Operations Manager)

“When we first entered PMA and looked down on all of the displays and banners that filled the massive room it was like a sensory overload compared to what we see in our valley. I walked away amazed at the endless opportunities that lie in the produce industry. Not only is the market huge, but it’s filled with really friendly people. I met a ton of vendors who were really excited about the products they had to offer and that’s what interests me about the industry - that personal interaction. PMA was an incredible and unforgettable opportunity to enter the world of produce sales for the weekend.”

- Keilee (Shay’s Sister/Receptionist/Little Bit of Everything)

“As a first-time PMA attendee, it was eye-opening for me to see the produce industry as a whole, compressed in one place. The show was incredibly large but simultaneously very well organized. From a communications perspective it was compelling to see the innovations companies are using to present their products to the public and great to meet the successful people behind nationally recognized brands. I’m excited to design our Owyhee Produce booth for the PMA Food Service show in July of 2016 and participate alongside the great people I met at the PMA Fresh Summit.”

Over the last 5-8 years we have dramatically improved our ability to extend the storage-onion shipping season. The combination of hearty storage varieties, cold storages, and sprout inhibitors means that many we can now supply onions from right here in Oregon for 10 months of the year. However, with the advantage these better skinned varieties come with there are also a few characteristics that must be managed in order to minimize shrink and maximize profits.

Later in the season you may begin to see green specks in the center of the onions. This little green speck is what we call an internal sprout. This happens naturally as the onion goes through its life cycle and this is a very manageable issue. If an onion is kept cool it will take, at least, several weeks for the internal sprouts to become external ones.

Here are a few pointers:

Keep onions cool (35-45 degrees) (While these temps may cause a bit of translucency, don’t worry it will go away with just 12-24 hours at 45 or higher)

Keep onions well ventilated, the more air the better (Our storages run 34-36 degrees and have constant air flow.)

Keep onions dry (Our storages run 55-65% humidity.)

If you have to choose between dry and warm or humid and cool….choose humid and cool

Avoid sudden changes in temp as the papery skin will draw-in and hold moisture

No room in the cooler, try air stacking the bags to allow air to reach the center of the pallet

Plan on keeping onions for 3 weeks during the later part of the storage season… treat them a bit more like you might an apple.

When it comes to keeping your produce display clean and organized, onions can be one of the hardest to maintain. Each and every movement causes parts of the flaky onion skin to fall off onto your display – a problem not solely found in the individual onion display, but also underneath the typical 3lb. mesh bags.

With current packaging options, there hasn’t been anything retailers could do to prevent the mess and consequently have resorted to just maintaining it. For decades, open displays and 3 lb. bags have been the only two options for onion packaging – packaging that is not exactly effective, but is familiar to retailers and consumers alike. At Owyhee Produce, we weren’t content with staying with the familiar, and looked for a better product to provide for our retailers and furthermore, their consumers.

Owyhee Produce is excited to announce a new innovative onion packaging option entitled The Sleeve Pack.

Still employing the use of a mesh bag, instead of loosely containing the onions, The Sleeve Pack hugs the onions in a side-by-side display that minimizes movement, and maximizes cleanliness and organization.

At the retail level, The Sleeve Pack makes displaying onions easier with its stackability and its assurance of consistency – offering 2 lbs. of onions all the same size.

Outside of the store, The Sleeve Pack offers your consumers great benefits at home. The Sleeve Pack continues its traits of easy storage and cleanliness, adding the ability to knot the open the slim bag for later use, a convenience that the open mesh bags can’t offer.

Shay Myers, General Manager of Owyhee Produce, is excited for retailers to reap the benefits of the Sleeve Pack’s design.

“The Sleeve Pack is innovative, it looks great, and I anticipate it driving sales,” Myers said. “But the bottom line for me is to get the absolute best product out to my customers. I want to give them an added value to their products they sell to their customers so that they can stand out.”

With a fully operational packaging system in place, Owyhee Produce is looking forward to sending The Sleeve Pack out with the start of the new year. At present, The Sleeve Pack will be sold in a carton

(21/2lbs.). Contact Owyhee Produce at 541-610-0410 for more information.

While there are reports of sluggish sales on onions nationwide, the numbers seem to indicate that not to be the case. That is to say the emotional response doesn’t match how we all feel. We feel like it is slow because we all have onions to sell and that is reflected in the prices we are willing to offer to move onions, at least yellow ones. Jumbo yellow onions are trading for $5.00-5.50 and mediums for about a dollar less than that. Jumbo and medium reds are holding their own and are trading for $6.50 and $5.00, respectively. Jumbo Whites are $12 and Mediums are $10.